Nick Nurse Nurse Your Feelings
Basketball coach Nick Nurse has a new gig with 76ers. Congratulations but he must avoid habits that resulted in Toronto Raptors firing him. It was long overdue.
It was not because the only Canadian team in the NBA did not make it to the 2023 Play Offs. He knows why he was fired. Players know. NBA analysts know. He was fired because he felt he was bigger than the team and systems all basketball organizations have in place.
Here’s an old piece I posted on 30 January 2021, because of those habits.
Hoop players are notorious for the ego. It goes back to the neighborhood basketball court where they cut their teeth. It’s a stage for many things outsiders will never understand. However, the main show is foot work, shooting hoops and drama around the rim.
It’s all good because some aspects ended up being part of professional basketball, although the NBA will never give neighborhood basketball the credit.
We easily label some players as bad boys, but never coaches, who can be so bad that they intentionally lose championships for personal agendas. Ridiculous. How can you say that? All NBA coaches want the Larry O’Brien Trophy and subsequent bling bling - championship rings.
A coach that has been there, is more dangerous because that itch has been satisfied. We saw it in 2020, in the ‘bubble’ where some coaches were in a hurry to go back to their families so they intentionally set players to fail. Other coaches had to rush back to launch their books, so the championship could wait for another year.
A coach becomes dangerous to the franchise when:
1. He has previous NBA success which makes him think he is irreplaceable.
2. He loses semi-finals and blames it on players that he ran ragged despite having a proven premium platinum bench.
3. He thinks he’s so large, he’s bigger than the organization that hired him despite zero time as a player and a coach.
4. He hires his friends that also lack these credentials, as assistants.
5. He sabotages games in his pursuit to carve what he thinks is the ideal composition of a team.
6. He doesn’t like the talent the organization found for him.
7. He has disdain for the organization and its capacity to make decisions.
8. He doesn’t give players minutes, then denigrates them to the media that they’re not good enough.
9. On court, with cameras on, he treats players like his schoolboys and not grown men.
10. He never takes the blame like other coaches.
Where does this leave players? Disoriented. Demoralized. The greatest crime from such a coach is destroying cohesion, team spirit.
By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
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